F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

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American neocons helped destabilize Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a “regime change” on Russia’s western border. But the coup – and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront – also reveal divisions within the Obama administration.

More than five years into his presidency, Barack Obama has failed to take full control over his foreign policy, allowing a bureaucracy shaped by long years of Republican control and spurred on by a neocon-dominated U.S. news media to frustrate many of his efforts to redirect America’s approach to the world in a more peaceful direction.

But Obama deserves a big dose of the blame for this predicament because he did little to neutralize the government holdovers and indeed played into their hands with his initial appointments to head the State and Defense departments, Hillary Clinton, a neocon-leaning Democrat, and Robert Gates, a Republican cold warrior, respectively.

Even now, key U.S. diplomats are more attuned to hard-line positions than to promoting peace. The latest example is Ukraine where U.S. diplomats, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, are celebrating the overthrow of an elected pro-Russian government.

Occurring during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the coup in Ukraine dealt an embarrassing black eye to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had offended neocon sensibilities by quietly cooperating with Obama to reduce tensions over Iran and Syria, where the neocons favored military options.

Over the past several weeks, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was undercut by a destabilization campaign encouraged by Nuland and Pyatt and then deposed in a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias. Even after Yanukovych and the political opposition agreed to an orderly transition toward early elections, right-wing armed patrols shattered the agreement and took strategic positions around Kiev.

Despite these ominous signs, Ambassador Pyatt hailed the coup as “a day for the history books.” Most of the mainstream U.S. news media also sided with the coup, with commentators praising the overthrow of an elected government as “reform.” But a few dissonant reports have pierced the happy talk by noting that the armed militias are part of the Pravy Sektor, a right-wing nationalist group which is often compared to the Nazis.

Thus, the Ukrainian coup could become the latest neocon-initiated “regime change” that ousted a target government but failed to take into account who would fill the void.

Some of these same American neocons pushed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, not realizing that removing Saddam Hussein would touch off a sectarian conflict and lead to a pro-Iranian Shiite regime. Similarly, U.S. military intervention in Libya in 2011 eliminated Muammar Gaddafi but also empowered Islamic extremists who later murdered the U.S. ambassador and spread unrest beyond Libya’s borders to nearby Mali.

One might trace this neocons’ blindness to consequences back to Afghanistan in the 1980s when the Reagan administration supported Islamic militants, including Osama bin Laden, in a war against Soviet troops, only to have Muslim extremists take control of Afghanistan and provide a base for al-Qaeda to plot the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

Regarding Ukraine, today’s State Department bureaucracy seems to be continuing the same anti-Moscow geopolitical strategy set during those Reagan-Bush years.

Robert Gates described the approach in his new memoir, Duty, explaining the view of President George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary Dick Cheney:

“When the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, Dick wanted to see the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world.”

Vice President Cheney and the neocons pursued a similar strategy during George W. Bush’s presidency, expanding NATO aggressively to the east and backing anti-Russian regimes in the region including the hard-line Georgian government, which provoked a military confrontation with Moscow in 2008, ironically, during the Summer Olympics in China.

Obama’s Strategy

As President, Obama has sought a more cooperative relationship with Russia’s Putin and, generally, a less belligerent approach toward adversarial countries. Obama has been supported by an inner circle at the White House with analytical assistance from some elements of the U.S. intelligence community.

But the neocon momentum at the State Department and from other parts of the U.S. government has continued in the direction set by George W. Bush’s neocon administration and by neocon-lite Democrats who surrounded Secretary of State Clinton during Obama’s first term.

The two competing currents of geopolitical thinking – a less combative one from the White House and a more aggressive one from the foreign policy bureaucracy – have often worked at cross-purposes. But Obama, with only a few exceptions, has been unwilling to confront the hardliners or even fully articulate his foreign policy vision publicly.

For instance, Obama succumbed to the insistence of Gates, Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus to escalate the war in Afghanistan in 2009, though the President reportedly felt trapped into the decision which he soon regretted. In 2010, Obama backed away from a Brazilian-Turkish-brokered deal with Iran to curtail its nuclear program after Clinton denounced the arrangement and pushed for economic sanctions and confrontation as favored by the neocons and Israel.

Just last summer, Obama – only at the last second – reversed a course charted by the State Department favoring a military intervention in Syria over disputed U.S. claims that the Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians. Putin helped arrange a way out for Obama by getting the Syrian government to agree to surrender its chemical weapons. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Showdown for War or Peace.”]

Stirring Up Trouble

Now, you have Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, acting as a leading instigator in the Ukrainian unrest, explicitly seeking to pry the country out of the Russian orbit. Last December, she reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves.”

The Kagan family includes other important neocons, such as Frederick Kagan, who was a principal architect of the Iraq and Afghan “surge” strategies. In Duty, Gates writes that “an important way station in my ‘pilgrim’s progress’ from skepticism to support of more troops [in Afghanistan] was an essay by the historian Fred Kagan, who sent me a prepublication draft.

“I knew and respected Kagan. He had been a prominent proponent of the surge in Iraq, and we had talked from time to time about both wars, including one long evening conversation on the veranda of one of Saddam’s palaces in Baghdad.”

Now, another member of the Kagan family, albeit an in-law, has been orchestrating the escalation of tensions in Ukraine with an eye toward one more “regime change.”

As for Nuland’s sidekick, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Pyatt previously served as a U.S. diplomat in Vienna involved in bringing the International Atomic Energy Agency into a line with U.S. and Israeli hostility toward Iran. A July 9, 2009, cable from Pyatt, which was released by Pvt. Bradley Manning, revealed Pyatt to be the middleman who coordinated strategy with the U.S.-installed IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano.

Pyatt reported that Amano offered to cooperate with the U.S. and Israel on Iran, including having private meetings with Israeli officials, supporting U.S. sanctions, and agreeing to IAEA personnel changes favored by the United States. According to the cable, Pyatt promised strong U.S. backing for Amano and Amano asked for more U.S. money. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “America’s Debt to Bradley Manning.”]

It was Ambassador Pyatt who was on the other end of Nuland’s infamous Jan. 28 phone call in which she discussed how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership. According to the conversation, which was intercepted and made public, Nuland ruled out one opposition figure, Vitali Klitschko, a popular former boxer, because he lacked experience.

Nuland also favored the UN as mediator over the European Union, at which point in the conversation she exclaimed, “Fuck the E.U.” to which Pyatt responded, “Oh, exactly …”

Ultimately, the Ukrainian unrest – over a policy debate whether Ukraine should move toward entering the European Union – led to a violent showdown in which neo-fascist storm troopers battled police, leaving scores dead. To ease the crisis, President Yanukovych agreed to a power-sharing government and to accelerated elections. But no sooner was that agreement signed then the hard-right faction threw it out and pressed for power in an apparent coup.

Again, the American neocons had performed the role of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, unleashing forces and creating chaos that soon was spinning out of control. But this latest “regime change,” which humiliated President Putin, could also do long-term damage to U.S.-Russian cooperation vital to resolving other crises, with Iran and Syria, two more countries where the neocons are also eager for confrontation.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

In an interview published Feb. 5 by km.ru, Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the former foreign relations head of the Russian Ministry of Defense and current president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies, issued a sharp warning about the nature of the strategic crisis unfolding in Ukraine:

“Apparently they [officials of the European Union and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry] have dedicated themselves, and continue to do so, to deeply and thoroughly studying the doctrine of Dr. Goebbels. . . They present everything backwards from reality. It is one of the formulas which Nazi propaganda employed most successfully: . . . They accuse the party that is defending itself, of aggression. What is happening in Ukraine and Syria is is a project of the West, a new type of war: in both places you see a clear anti-Russian approach, and as is well known, wars today begin with psychological and information warfare operations. . . Kerry and Obama are encouraging in Kiev what they harshly repress in their country. European leaders break up unauthorized demonstrations with hoses, throwing demonstrators in jail, while in the Ukrainian case they do the exact opposite, and on top of that they threaten Russia. Logically, this is part of information warfare.

“Keep in mind that, under the cover of information commotion, U.S. ships are entering the Black Sea, that is, near Ukraine. They are sending marines, and they have also begun to deploy more tanks in Europe. . . We see that on the heels of the disinformation operation a land-sea, and possibly air operation is being prepared.

“They haven’t even taught [opposition leaders] Klitchko, Yatsenyuk and Tyahnybok to run a government efficiently. The main thing is for them to take power, and destroy the Ukrainian state.”

Currently in the Ukraine, there is a parliament in Kiev and a parliament in Kharkov. The parliament stripped Yanukovych of his powers and impeached him but he says they dont have the powers to do that and refuses to step down. The latest reports have the President in Donetsk. There is actually no single person in charge over there. It’s chaos. Everything about the ‘rebellion’ reeks of western puppetry and fascism. Everything about the Yanukovych supporters of course reeks of Russia. The Crimea is having massive protests right now in the streets because they want to join in union with Russia. And Russia has stated it is prepared to send in troops to protect ethnic Russians of which there is 7-8 million of in Ukraine. Things are very fluid and changing hourly. Stay tuned..

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

On how it all started - refusing to join the EU and become part of the New World Order, complete with the transfer of wealth, austerity and willingness to go to war for the Empire.

I've learned a long time ago, that you cannot trust the so-called Social Democratic parties in Europe, they have been coopted by the same corporatists as all the other mainstream parties. (Tony Blair is just the most famous case in point.)

The recent events in Ukraine are a warning to the international working class. Under conditions in which workers lack both a perspective and a party to enable them to intervene independently in political events, the situation in Ukraine has developed in an extremely reactionary direction. What had been unthinkable in Europe since the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich in 1945 has come to pass: while the US and Germany ruthlessly and recklessly destabilized the country, fascists became the decisive force on the ground.

The crisis was sparked in November of last year by President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union. This was unacceptable for Washington and Berlin. As Theo Sommer put it in Die Zeit, the issue at stake was “Where should the EU’s eastern boundary, and the western boundary of the Russian sphere of influence, be situated?”

The US and Germany systematically supported the pro-EU opposition, which organized the demonstrations against Yanukovych. In addition to Julia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland and Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR—two right-wing parties with close ties to the German CDU—the opposition also included the fascist Svoboda party of Oleh Tyahnybok.

The fact that Svoboda employs neo-fascist symbols, agitates against foreigners, Jews, Hungarians and Poles, maintains close relations with the French National Front and is compared to the ultra-right Greek Golden Dawn and Hungarian Jobbik by the World Jewish Congress, has not prevented the foreign ministers of the United States and Germany from publicly embracing Tyahnybok.

The initial opposition demonstrations, however, failed to force Yanukovych to resign. At this point, paramilitary fascist militias were mobilized to intensify the conflict and propel the country to the brink of civil war. The leading role was played by the so-called Right Sector, whose masked militants, equipped with helmets, batons, fire bombs and firearms soon dominated the center of Kiev, carrying out fierce attacks on the security forces. News reports estimate their number in Kiev alone to be between 2,000 and 3,000.

The conservative Die Welt paper termed the Right Sector an “informal association of right-wing and neo-fascist splinter groups”. Time magazine, which interviewed its leader Dmitry Yarosh, writes that their “ideology borders on fascism and it enjoys support only from Ukraine’s most hard-line nationalists”. Many of its members are former soldiers or fought in the conflict on the side of Azerbaijan, and in Chechnya and South Ossetia against Russia.

It was these paramilitary fascist militias which ensured that the situation escalated last Thursday. While they fought bloody battles with the security forces, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides, the German, Polish and French foreign ministers flew into Kiev and forced Yanukovych to accept a “compromise” following hours of negotiations. It was the beginning of the end for the president.

When the Right Sector spoke out against the agreement and threatened to resume hostilities, the military declared its neutrality, and many deputies from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions changed sides. This sealed his fate.

The situation in Ukraine is still extremely tense and unstable. The various camps of the opposition are fighting for political dominance, while there is the danger of secession and civil war in Crimea and the east of the county. The fascist forces upon which the Western powers and the opposition relied to force through regime change are demanding their pound of flesh and will play an important role in the political life of the country.

When she spoke at Independence Square after her release from prison, former prime minister and Fatherland party leader Yulia Tymoshenko made a series of overtures to the fascist militias. She expressly thanked Right Sector for its “contribution to the revolution.” The new interior minister promised that the “Self-Defense Forces from Maidan” would be integrated into the new order.

This strengthening of the fascists would not be possible without the systematic support of the media and the main political parties in Europe and the US. Liberal newspapers such as the New York Times and the Süddeutsche Zeitung have produced a deluge of propaganda portraying events in Ukraine as a “democratic revolution”, glossing over the role of fascists and glorifying the coup.

Representatives of parties of all stripes—the US Democrats and Republicans, the Conservatives, Social Democrats, Greens and Pirates from Germany and other European countries—have made pilgrimages to Kiev to express their solidarity with the right-wing mob. In particular, Germany’s social-democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier played a key role in the coup against Yanukovych.

This shift towards fascist forces is not limited to Ukraine. Sections of the French elites are turning towards the National Front (FN), which has benefited in turn from the right-wing, anti-working class policies of the Socialist Party. The FN currently is in first place in polls for the upcoming European elections. Underlying this shift to the right is the intensification of the international crisis of capitalism and growing social polarization.

In Kiev, the first task of the new government will be to administer the medicine already prescribed for Greece: austerity, welfare cuts and price increases. Representatives of the EU and the IMF have made clear that these are the prerequisites for the loans Ukraine needs to stave off bankruptcy. This will cheer the billionaire Ukrainian oligarchs, some of whom backed the opposition, while others changed sides in the past few days.

The US and EU are using the coup in Ukraine to step up pressure on Russia, risking a military confrontation. In the Financial Times, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warns that Russian meddling in Ukraine’s internal conflicts “would compel Washington to use its influence internationally to prompt steps that would be costly to Moscow.”

Throughout the crisis the working class in Ukraine has had no opportunity to intervene in political events. This is why the imperialist powers, competing oligarchic cliques, and the fascists were able to prevail. The growing threat of dictatorship and war—which is so clear today in Ukraine—can only be countered by a united movement of the international working class fighting to overthrow capitalism and all its backers on the basis of a socialist program.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Scappoose

Feb. 25, 2014 10:59 am

With all due respect what a load of BS - this Nuland lady is a neocon but she sure as heck didn't get to where she was with only republican support. It's totally false that the Obama admin has lost control of the state dept by a rogue neocon republican element.

Completely FALSE.Even a cursory look at wiki shows she was first a Bush Sr pick and then Clinton gave her her 1st big serious promotion - then she became a right hand advisor to dick Cheney and the bush Admin and then was given Multiple promotions from the Obama admin to the position up to Hillary Clinton Spokesperson and another big promotion by Obama to the position she has now. Enough with the Obama wants to do the right thing but is just stimied - false to the point of negligence.Hillary Clinton AND Dick Cheney both are well known for Only hiring those that are very loyal to them. Nuland was seen as this by Both Clinton and Cheney. No doubt because Nuland was loyal to both - and Both H Clinton and cheney were pure corporatists thru and thru.$5 billion to destabilize Ukraine - Hundreds of millions to Destabalize Venezuela - Admit it - the dems are neocons too - and Parry offers bad analysis - or probably is just another in a long line of dem party hacks writing pandering and apologist articles.Of course that was all written with All Due Respect - something the Obama Admn knows nothing about as they sow death, terrorism and destruction globally. (When they hire al quieda to fight against Syria only the insouciant still beleive the Obama admin wants to 'do the right thing')Imagine if Russia or China spent 40 billion to hire violent protestors to attack governmental buildings in Texas - what would the USA response be? Violent arrests of protesters and their leaders no doubt. I mean heck they violently attacked The Occupy crowd for sleeping in parks!Bad - factually wrong analysis by a democratic party apologist.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

The Neo-Con Movement began as a Democratic movement. Dems hands are as bloody as Reps. Same thing has occurred with Obama embracing Bush policies. There is ZERO difference the foreign policies of two parties. Dont you recall how Romney was constantly me tooing Obama on foreign policy in the second debate?

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by drc2

Feb. 25, 2014 12:18 pm

Yes, Neocons did emerge from the Democrats as the Cold War post Vietnam 'realists' against the Hippies and Peaceniks. They helped keep anything progressive from emerging, and they made Reagan Democrat appear to be an older and wiser liberal rather than an American Century ideologue.

I find Susan Rice's replay of her namesake, Condi, to be nauseating. Yes, Obama will be judged severely for going along or even embracing the nation building and power projection of the New Rome. This example of how to do it better the Democrat Way of Empire is Dollar Bill's Wet Dream. Progressives have nothing to do with this crap.

Still, did you hear all the other stuff Romney said? We have no alternative in our media delivered 'demockrisy." We are aware of what we do not have with the Dems.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

Yes, Neocons did emerge from the Democrats as the Cold War post Vietnam 'realists' against the Hippies and Peaceniks. They helped keep anything progressive from emerging, and they made Reagan Democrat appear to be an older and wiser liberal rather than an American Century ideologue.

I find Susan Rice's replay of her namesake, Condi, to be nauseating. Yes, Obama will be judged severely for going along or even embracing the nation building and power projection of the New Rome.

Condoleezza Rice, Susan E. Rice and Thomas E. Donilon are all members of the David Rockefeller founded Trilateral Commission. (See their membership list here.):

Condoleezza Rice, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, and Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Hoover Institution, Palo Alto; former U. S. Secretary of State; former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush

Former Members in Public Service

Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United NationsThomas E. Donilon, Assistant to the President, U.S. National Security Advisor

When you think Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group, think: ExxonMobil, Chevron, JPMorgan Chase. The link to all is David Rockefeller.

Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Miloševic' in 2000.

Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firm Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year.

These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks’ “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists for clients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola.

Referred to in emails under the moniker “SR501,” Popovic was first approached by Stratfor in 2007 to give a lecture in the firm’s office about events transpiring in Eastern Europe, according to a Stratfor source who asked to remain confidential for this story.

In one of the emails, Popovic forwarded information about activists harmed or killed by the U.S.-armed Bahraini government, obtained from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights during the regime’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in fall 2011. Popovic also penned a blueprint for Stratfor on how to unseat the now-deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in September 2010.

Stratfor’s Global Activist Connector

Using his celebrated activist status, Popovic opened many doors for Stratfor to meet with activists globally. In turn, the information Stratfor intended to gain from Popovic’s contacts would serve as “actionable intelligence”—the firm billed itself as a “Shadow CIA”—for its corporate clients.

Popovic passed information to Stratfor about on-the-ground activist events in countries around the world, ranging from the Philippines, Libya, Tunisia, Vietnam, Iran, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Poland and Belarus, Georgia, Bahrain, Venezuela and Malaysia. Often, the emails reveal, Popovic passed on the information to Stratfor without the consent of the activists and likely without the activists ever knowing that their emails were being shuttled to the private security firm.

In the U.S., this investigation’s co-author, Carl Gibson (representing US Uncut), and the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum had a meeting with Popovic shortly after their two respective groups used a media hoax to play a prank on General Electric, ridiculing the company over itsnon-payment of U.S. taxes.

The pair gave Popovic information about both groups’ plans for the coming year and news later came out that Stratfor closely monitored the Yes Men’s activities. (The blow photograph taken by Bichlbaum in April 2011 shows Popovic (L) and US Uncut’s Carl Gibson.)

During the Arab Spring, in Egypt in January 2011, Popovic received an interview invitation for an appearance on CNN. The first people he turned to for talking points were Stratfor employees, who provided him with five talking points to lead with.

Stratfor said Popovic’s main use for the firm was his vast array of grassroots activist contacts around the world.

“A little reminder that the main utility in this contact is his ability to connect us to the troublemakers around the world that he is in touch with. His own ability to discern situation on the ground may be limited, he mainly has initial contact with an asset and then lets them do their own thing,” reads a May 2010 email written by former Stratfor Eurasia Analyst Marko Papic. “He does himself have information that may be useful from time to time. But, the idea is to gather a network of contacts through CANVAS, contacts that we can then contact independently.”

Popovic was so well-received by Stratfor that he even got his wife, Marijah, a job there. She worked for a year from March 2010 through March 2011 as the weekend open source intelligence analyst at Stratfor. The other candidate for the job, Jelena Tancic, also worked for CANVAS.

“The Canvas guy [Popovic] is a friend/source [for Stratfor], and recommended her to us,” Stratfor’s Vice President of Analysis Scott Stewart said in a March 2010 email, leaving out that the two were dating at the time.

Popovic and his wife grew so close to Stratfor, in fact, that Popovic invited numerous members of the Stratfor staff to their wedding in Belgrade, Serbia.

Helping Stratfor Manufacture Revolutions

Stratfor saw Popovic’s main value not only as a source for intelligence on global revolutionary and activist movements, but also as someone who, if needed, could help overthrow leaders of countries hostile to U.S. geopolitical and financial interests. So useful was Popovic to Stratfor that the firm gave him a free subscription, dubbed “legit sources we use all the time as a company” by Papic.

In a June 2011 email, Papic referred to Popovic as a “great friend” of his and described him as a “Serb activist who travels the world fomenting revolution.”

“They…basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;) ,” Papic says in one email. Replying to a follow up to that email, he states, “They just go and set up shop in a country and try to bring the government down. When used properly, more powerful than an aircraft carrier battle group.”

In response to the “aircraft battle group” email, Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton sardonically said that perhaps they could be sent into Iran. Emails also reveal Popovic served as an information source intermediary for on-the-ground activists in Iran, also informing Stratfor of the funding struggle for “democracy programs” there, as the U.S. government pushed a “soft power” agenda.

Another March 2010 email from Stewart to Burton said that CANVAS was “trying to get rid of Chavez,” referring to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In 2007, CANVAS trained activists to overthrow Chavez.

“If I remember correctly, we use hushmail communication to contact him regarding Venezuela due to the sensitivity of using a revolutionary NGO as a source considering we have clients who operate in country,” Papic said in a January 2011 email of Popovic.

Stratfor grew so enamored of CANVAS’s ability to foment regime change abroad that it invited Popovic to its Austin headquarters in 2010 to give seminars on the subject, and paid for his trip there.

CANVAS’s Goldman Sachs Cash

One of CANVAS’s major funders is Muneer Satter, a former Goldman Sachs executive who stepped down from that position in June 2012 and now owns Satter Investment Management LLC. Stratfor CEO Shea Morenz worked for ten years at Goldman Sachs as well, where he served as Managing Director in the Investment Management Division and Region Head for Private Wealth Management for the Southwest Region.

Satter is meanwhile a major funder of the Republican Party, giving over $300,000 to Karl Rove’s Super PAC Crossroads GPS before the 2012 election, and another $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association in the first half of 2013 prior to the 2014 mid-term elections.

Living in a massive, $9.5 million mansion in Chicago’s North Shore suburb of Lake Michigan, Muneer also gave $50,000 toward President Obama’s inaugural fund in 2009.

When it came time to connect Muneer with the global intelligence firm, Popovic served as the middle man introducing Satter to Stratfor Chairman George Friedman.

“Whenever I want to understand the details behind world events, I turn to Stratfor,” reads an endorsement from Satter on Stratfor’s website. “They have the most detailed and insightful analysis of world affairs and are miles ahead of mainstream media.”

Otpor!: A Counter-History

To understand how Popovic came to aide Stratfor in its intelligence-gathering efforts, it’s crucial to examine Otpor! and CANVAS critically. A close examination demonstrates that Popovic was a natural choice to be a Stratfor informant and close advisor.

Often valorized by grassroots activists and Western media, there was far more to the “Bulldozer Revolution” that led to the overthrow of Miloševic' and subsequent Eastern European regimes than meets the eye.

“In principle, [Serbia] was an overt operation, funded by congressional appropriations of around $10 million for fiscal 1999 and $31 million for 2000. Some Americans involved in the anti-Milosevic effort said they were aware of CIA activity at the fringes of the campaign, but had trouble finding out what the agency was up to,” explained a 2000 investigative piece appearing in The Washington Post.

“The lead role was taken by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign assistance agency, which channeled the funds through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).”

“In fact between 1997 and 2000 the National Endowment for Democracy and US government may have accomplished what NATO’s 37,000 bombing sorties had been unable to do: oust Milosevic, replace him with their favoured candidate Vojislav Kostunica and promote a neoliberal vision for Serbia,” independent scholar Michael Barker wrote for Z Magazine. “In much the same way as corporate front groups and astroturf groups recruit genuinely committed supporters, strategically useful social movements can potentially dominate civil society when provided with the right resources (massive financial and professional backing).”

Otpor! was so successful that it was ushered into Ukraine to help manufacture regime change there in 2004, using the template applied originally in Serbia with $65 million in cash from the U.S. government.

“We trained them in how to set up an organization, how to open local chapters, how to create a ‘brand,’ how to create a logo, symbols, and key messages,” an Otpor! activist told U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. “We trained them in how to identify the key weaknesses in society and what people’s most pressing problems were—what might be a motivating factor for people, and above all young people, to go to the ballot box and in this way shape their own destiny.”

The overthrow of Miloševic' was accompanied by U.S.-funding for the creation of a robust media apparatus in Serbia, and Popovic’s wife worked at one of the U.S.-funded radio and TV outlets as a journalist and anchor B92 from 2004-2009.

“By helping Radio B92 and linking it with a network of radio stations (ANEM), international assistance undermined the regime’s direct and indirect control over news and information,” a January 2004 policy paper released by USAID explained. “In Serbia, independent media supported by USAID and other international donors facilitated the regime change.”

Critics point out that what happened in Eastern Europe was regime change, not revolution in any real sense of the term.

“[They] were not revolutions at all; actually, they were little more than intra-elite power transfers,’” Portland State University Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, Gerald Sussman, explained in his book, “Branded Democracy: U.S. Regime Change in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe.”

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Roger Casement

Feb. 25, 2014 1:44 pm

Continued 1...

“Modern tactics of electioneering were employed to cast regime change as populist, which took advantage of the unstable and vulnerable situations in those regions following the breakup of the Soviet Union,” he wrote.

Given Otpor!’s ties to powerful factions in the U.S. government, perhaps it’s unsurprising that Popovic felt comfortable giving a lecture to the Air Force Academy in May 2010, and attending a National Security Council meeting in December 2009.

A powerful individual who lobbied the U.S. government to give money to CANVAS early on was Michael McFaul, the current U.S. Ambassador to Russia for the State Department and someone who “worked closely with” Popovic while serving as a Senior Fellow at theright-wing Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Critics Chime In, Popovic Responds

Maryam Alkhawaja, director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said she had known Popovic for several years as an activist and had no knowledge of his outside relationships before the Wikileaks release of Stratfor emails.

“Srdja is someone I’ve met more than once. He was very supportive of the Bahrain revolution, supportive of the human rights fight,” Alkhawaja said in a phone interview. “When he gave me their information, that’s what surprised me the most.”

Alkhawaja said that at the time she wasn’t aware of what kind of firm Stratfor was, but she became immediately suspicious after reading Stratfor’s questions to her. She never corresponded with Stratfor due to what she felt was the suspicious nature of the emails coming from the firm.

“It was a series of really weird intelligence agency-like questions, given that they knew I was working in a human rights group. They were asking questions like, who’s funding the party coalition, how many members do they have, questions that even I didn’t know the answers to,” she said. “The fact that they asked questions like that, made me question the motive behind the email I received. That’s why I never responded.”

“Whenever we get emails like that or were contacted by people who seemed very interested in asking intelligence agency-like questions, we usually block them, because we know they probably work for the government,” Alkhawaja continued. “Journalists know the kind of work we do so they wouldn’t ask those questions in the first place. I just found the email very weird and thats why I actually never responded.”

In a Skype interview, one of Otpor!’s co-founders, who left the movement and asked to maintain his confidentiality, said his primary concern from the Wikileaks emails was that Popovic was giving out activists’ information to a third party without their prior consent.

An interview with Popovic sang a different tune about CANVAS. He stated, “We definitely wouldn’t jeopardize any of our activists’ safety, so we always follow their lead and never expose them to anybody without their consent.”

Popovic also said CANVAS would speak to anyone and everyone—without any discrimination—about nonviolent direct action.

“CANVAS will present anywhere — to those committed to activism and nonviolent struggle, but also to those who still live in the Cold War era and think that tanks and planes and nukes shape the world, not the common people leading popular movements,” he said.

“If we can persuade any decision maker in the world, in Washington, Kremlin, Tel Aviv or Damascus that it is nonviolent struggle that they should embrace and respect – not foreign military intervention, or oppression over own population – we would do that.”

Yet, given Popovic’s track-record—and specifically, who buttered his bread during the long professional career he pursued in activism—critics say Popovic fit like a glove at Stratfor.

“A group of Serbs cannot lead a protest movement anywhere outside Serbia, but his techniques are nonetheless instrumental in helping achieve certain political aims,” Professor Sussman said in an interview. “He also serves as an intelligence gatherer in the process—of use to private and state intelligence agencies. That’s what Stratfor saw as his use.”

Ukraine’s “Brown Shirt Revolution”: Part of a US -NATO -EU Plan to Break up Russia?
By Francis A. Boyle and John Robles
Global Research, February 22, 2014
Voice of Russia
Region: Europe, Russia and FSU

It is a fact that since 9-11-2001, the US Government has been in the business of destroying countries and using NATO as it principle instrument. That was stated more than a decade ago by then US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and later by General Wesley Clark.

The Pentagon drew up a list of 7 states that were to be destroyed: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria and they have systematically proceeded to destroy all of the countries on the list.

The strategy in Ukraine is the same, US/NATO/EU are promoting the destabilization and the breakup of Ukraine in order to achieve the NATO goal of moving into Ukrainian territory closer to Russia.

University of Illinois Professor Francis Boyle spoke on these issues and more in an interview with the Voice of Russia.

While Russia was distracted into believing that the US wanted a reset US foreign policy was being planned and dictated by rabid Russia haters like Zbignew Brzezinski and Richard Pipes. Brzezinski wants to breakup Russia into approximately 68 parts and has placed his protégés in key US foreign policy posts. According to Mr. Boyle Brezezinski has staffed the Obama administration with his acolytes and protégées, including the US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a specialist in color revolutions. At the end of the day the US plan is to see the breakup of the Russian Federation, that is the goal.

This is John Robles, you are listening to an interview with Professor Francis Boyle. He is a Professor in International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. This is part 1 of a longer interview. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com

Robles: Hello Sir! How are you this evening?

Boyle: Very fine. Thanks for having me on, John, and my best to your listening audience.

Robles: Thank you Sir! And thanks for agreeing to speak with us. News of the day is Ukraine. Now you’ve recently made some statements and done some work regarding Syria. I’d like to ask for your correlations between what is going on right now in Syria and what is going on right now in Ukraine. Do you see a connection? Some people are saying that Ukraine, the push there was because the US was not allowed to carry out military operations against Syria. Do you see a relationship between them?

Boyle: Well I wouldn’t say that is “necessarily” the reason. As we know, Ukraine has for a long time been a strategic objective of the United States and trying to get Ukraine into NATO. And this EU plan was simply a first step in that direction. The EU wasn’t really offering anything to Ukraine. But it was very clear, if they could move Ukraine closer to the EU, that would be a step closer to NATO. In fact, I regret to say over the years, even though I have EU citizenship and carry an EU passport, the EU now has become nothing but an anteroom to NATO.

So, I think this really has to be understood in terms of the gradual movement of NATO further to the east in violation of the pledge that George Bush Senior and Jim Baker gave to then President Gorbachev that if he agreed to the reunification of Germany, NATO would move no farther east, towards Russia’s boundaries.

Robles: Well, we’ve seen those promises, similar promises were made to President Gorbachev – the first and last President of the Soviet Union – those were also ignored. And regarding …

Boyle: The problem was – he never got them in writing.

Robles: That’s exactly what I was going to say.

Boyle: That is incredibly naive on his part not to get them in writing. And I would point out, right now the United States is trying to do the exact same thing on the deployment of BMDs (ballistic missile defense) into Europe and around the borders of Russia saying “you have to accept our assurances, but we are not going to give you anything in writing.”

You know, it is preposterous. In fact, we had something in writing and that was the Anti-ballistic Missile System Treaty of 1972 that prevented all of this. And then Bush Junior pulled out of that treaty. So, as it stands now, really anything goes, these verbal assurances mean nothing.

Robles: Getting away a little bit from the ABM system now, you mentioned NATO and Ukraine; there is a military objective, if you could tell us about that? And is there a similar military objective for Syria? Or what is the objective of the US Government in Syria?

Boyle: Since 9/11 2001, as publicly admitted by then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the United States Government would be getting into the business of destroying states. And that was later confirmed by General Wesley Clark, as you know in his memoirs, his meeting there at the Pentagon where they had the list of seven states they were going to proceed to take over.

Afghanistan was first, Iraq was second, Sudan was on the list, Libya was on the list and Syria was on the list, Iran was on the list. So, they are proceeding systematically down that list of destroying states. Syria is now near the top, Iran might be next. And it also appears now the same strategy is being applied to Ukraine to promote the crackup of Ukraine between east and west and, I would hate to say it, the dissolution of Ukraine as a state.

Robles: Can you repeat that quote again? He said…

Boyle: Yes Wolfowitz said… I have the citation in my book “The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence”, where Wolfowitz said: “We are going to get into the business of destroying states”. And then, soon thereafter General Wesley Clark (head of NATO) was in the Pentagon and can confirm they drew up a list of seven states that they were systematically going to go after.

So, that’s really, the objective here of Syria, against Syria, is as they did to Libya: to crackup Syria as a state into its constituent, religious and ethnic units not only for the United States but also for the benefit of Israel.

As you know, Israel has been a long time opponent to Syria. They headed a plan there, the Yi Nolan Plan to crackup surrounding states in order to better manage them and keep them under control. So, here you see a congruence of interests certainly between the United States and Israel.

And I regret to say it, but pretty much they have cracked up Syria in its constituent units, as they had done to Iraq. We now have basically three mini states in Iraq. The same has been done to Afghanistan and also Libya, where you have, you know it is hard to say there is a meaningful state there anymore. I have a new book out called “Destroying Libya and World Order” where I have all these citations in there and an analysis. And then, I tried to extend this to Syria near the end of the book.

And it does appear we are seeing a similar pattern of behavior here on Ukraine: to destabilize Ukraine, promote a crack up, some type of civil war or who knows what. And I guess the theory is, well if NATO-EU can get western Ukraine – fine! – they can extend the borders of NATO, the EU that far.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

So, it is a very dangerous situation, because, as you know, Ukraine is of utmost strategic significance to Russia. And second, Russia believes that Ukraine is the cradle of its civilization.

Robles: Well it is, that’s not a belief. Ukraine is the mother of Russia.

Boyle: I’ve been to Ukraine and I’ve been to where Nestor wrote his chronicles, and I have studied Russian and Ukrainian history, sure, at Harvard. And I went through the same PhD program at Harvard that produced Zbigniew Brzezinski before me and Richard Pipes, both of whom were, are ardent Russia haters, there is no question at all about it. And that is really part of the problem here in the United States, when it comes to Russian studies, that so much of it is biased against Russia inherently.

Robles: Why is that, please, if you could? You’ve been through the system, you know the system. Why does the US hate Russia so much? Why?

Boyle: Well I spent ten years at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School studying Russian history, Russian literature, Soviet politics, Russian politics. Indeed I even offered Soviet politics and Russian history on my PhD General Exams at Harvard, which qualified me to teach both those subjects to undergraduates at Harvard. But I never learned the language because that was not what I was intending to do.

And all those years, ten years of studying, I only had two professors who I thought were fair, reasonable and balanced when it came to Russia and the Soviet Union. And understand Harvard and Chicago are two of the leading centers in the United States for training Russian experts. They train professors and experts, government officials and things of that nature.

Robles: Diplomats…

Boyle: So, and again, you had Brzezinski, I went through the same PhD program that produced Brzezinski and Kissinger. You know Brzezinski is an expatriate Pole who hates the Russians with a passion.

Robles: Right, I think it was 68 autonomous regions, if that’s what it was.

Boyle: It’s more dangerous than that! In that Obama’s mentor at Columbia was Brzezinski. And Brzezinski ran the foreign affairs apparatus for Obama’s campaign and he has staffed the Obama administration with his acolytes and protégés, like McFaul – the recently resigning ambassador.

Robles: I’m sorry, can you expand a little bit on McFaul? You said he is one of Brzezinski’s protégé.

Boyle: Yes, he is from the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which is a neo-conservative operation out there, and Brzezinski is one of these people.

Robles: Was McFaul chosen by Brzezinski?

Boyle: I think all the high-level appointments in the Obama administration in foreign affairs have been run by Brzezinski. That is my personal feeling looking at it. Yes, Brzezinski decided not to take a position himself, but all these people that have surrounded Obama, not just on Russia, but other areas, are Brzezinski protégés and indeed that goes back in the Democratic Party I think since Carter came to power and Brzezinski was his National Security Advisor. You know, he was the one who started the Afghan Mujahidin war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and bragged about it.

So, within the Democratic Party Brzezinski is considered to be their foreign affairs guru and he was Obama’s mentor at Columbia, and it is a matter of public record that Brzezinski was running the foreign affairs apparatus for the Obama campaign.

Robles: People are thinking about a reset and trying to improve relations. And I don’t think anyone knew that it was all Brzezinski, because people knew who Brzezinski was a long time ago.

Boyle: Right. Well, this I think is part of their plan to see the crackup of the Russian Federation, at the end of the day. Sure, that’s I think what his objective is.

You know, if you want to get credentialed as an expert on Russia, you have to go to somewhere like Columbia or Harvard, or Chicago and get your Master’s degree or PhD from people like that. At Harvard they also had Richard Pipes, he was the Reagan’s top guru on the Soviet Union, The Committee on the Present Danger.

I had Pipes for imperial Russian history, again, another expatriate Pole who hates the Russians with passion. Pipes was so bad in his course on Imperial Russian history, he used to break into sweat when he was lecturing on Peter the Great or Catherine the Great and had to take a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipe his brow. So, he is another fanatic against the Russians, only prominent in the Republican Party.

So, we don’t really have … you know Professor Cohen at NYU I think is fair, balanced and reasonable when it comes to Russia. He just wrote something in The Nation on Ukraine. And I think he wrote a very good book on Russia. But you know, he is really the exception to a pretty abysmal rule here in the United States when it comes to training and credentialing what were Soviet and now Russian experts.

Robles: So, why are you fair-minded Sir?

Boyle: I try to come at Russia and the Soviet Union with an open mind. I lived through the Cuban missile crisis and I concluded that probably the most important issue of my time would be to learn to understand Russia across the board and the Soviet Union. So, that’s why I spent the ten years studying at the University of Chicago and Harvard and getting formally credentialed in these areas.

And I have to say I was pretty appalled. I did have Professor Edward Keenan at Harvard who was my teacher, mentor and friend. And he was Director of the Russian Research Center. And he is very fair, balanced and reasonable, and Professor Harold Berman at Harvard Law School, again, very fair, balanced and reasonable. But that was pretty much about it.

I was invited over twice by the Soviet Government to lecture, once around the country in 1986 and then in 1989. And I guess they just figured I was a reasonable American to talk to. And I was open, I met with people and lectured and I seemed to get along with everyone. We didn’t necessarily agree about everything, but at least we could try to talk it out.

But that’s not what we are seeing now. That’s for sure! As we know from the Nuland tape here with the US Ambassador in Kiev, she admits they had spent at least $5 billion right away now trying to promote opposition to the democratically elected government in Ukraine. Whatever you think of Yanukovych, he is democratically elected and so far I think he’s shown a remarkable restraint.

Interview with Professor Francis Boyle. He is a Professor in International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. That was part 1 of a longer interview. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com

Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Miloševic' in 2000.

Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firm Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year.

These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks’ “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists for clients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola.

Referred to in emails under the moniker “SR501,” Popovic was first approached by Stratfor in 2007 to give a lecture in the firm’s office about events transpiring in Eastern Europe, according to a Stratfor source who asked to remain confidential for this story.

In one of the emails, Popovic forwarded information about activists harmed or killed by the U.S.-armed Bahraini government, obtained from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights during the regime’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in fall 2011. Popovic also penned a blueprint for Stratfor on how to unseat the now-deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in September 2010.

Stratfor’s Global Activist Connector

Using his celebrated activist status, Popovic opened many doors for Stratfor to meet with activists globally. In turn, the information Stratfor intended to gain from Popovic’s contacts would serve as “actionable intelligence”—the firm billed itself as a “Shadow CIA”—for its corporate clients.

Popovic passed information to Stratfor about on-the-ground activist events in countries around the world, ranging from the Philippines, Libya, Tunisia, Vietnam, Iran, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Poland and Belarus, Georgia, Bahrain, Venezuela and Malaysia. Often, the emails reveal, Popovic passed on the information to Stratfor without the consent of the activists and likely without the activists ever knowing that their emails were being shuttled to the private security firm.

In the U.S., this investigation’s co-author, Carl Gibson (representing US Uncut), and the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum had a meeting with Popovic shortly after their two respective groups used a media hoax to play a prank on General Electric, ridiculing the company over itsnon-payment of U.S. taxes.

The pair gave Popovic information about both groups’ plans for the coming year and news later came out that Stratfor closely monitored the Yes Men’s activities. (The blow photograph taken by Bichlbaum in April 2011 shows Popovic (L) and US Uncut’s Carl Gibson.)

During the Arab Spring, in Egypt in January 2011, Popovic received an interview invitation for an appearance on CNN. The first people he turned to for talking points were Stratfor employees, who provided him with five talking points to lead with.

Stratfor said Popovic’s main use for the firm was his vast array of grassroots activist contacts around the world.

“A little reminder that the main utility in this contact is his ability to connect us to the troublemakers around the world that he is in touch with. His own ability to discern situation on the ground may be limited, he mainly has initial contact with an asset and then lets them do their own thing,” reads a May 2010 email written by former Stratfor Eurasia Analyst Marko Papic. “He does himself have information that may be useful from time to time. But, the idea is to gather a network of contacts through CANVAS, contacts that we can then contact independently.”

Popovic was so well-received by Stratfor that he even got his wife, Marijah, a job there. She worked for a year from March 2010 through March 2011 as the weekend open source intelligence analyst at Stratfor. The other candidate for the job, Jelena Tancic, also worked for CANVAS.

“The Canvas guy [Popovic] is a friend/source [for Stratfor], and recommended her to us,” Stratfor’s Vice President of Analysis Scott Stewart said in a March 2010 email, leaving out that the two were dating at the time.

Popovic and his wife grew so close to Stratfor, in fact, that Popovic invited numerous members of the Stratfor staff to their wedding in Belgrade, Serbia.

Helping Stratfor Manufacture Revolutions

Stratfor saw Popovic’s main value not only as a source for intelligence on global revolutionary and activist movements, but also as someone who, if needed, could help overthrow leaders of countries hostile to U.S. geopolitical and financial interests. So useful was Popovic to Stratfor that the firm gave him a free subscription, dubbed “legit sources we use all the time as a company” by Papic.

In a June 2011 email, Papic referred to Popovic as a “great friend” of his and described him as a “Serb activist who travels the world fomenting revolution.”

“They…basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;) ,” Papic says in one email. Replying to a follow up to that email, he states, “They just go and set up shop in a country and try to bring the government down. When used properly, more powerful than an aircraft carrier battle group.”

In response to the “aircraft battle group” email, Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton sardonically said that perhaps they could be sent into Iran. Emails also reveal Popovic served as an information source intermediary for on-the-ground activists in Iran, also informing Stratfor of the funding struggle for “democracy programs” there, as the U.S. government pushed a “soft power” agenda.

Another March 2010 email from Stewart to Burton said that CANVAS was “trying to get rid of Chavez,” referring to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In 2007, CANVAS trained activists to overthrow Chavez.

“If I remember correctly, we use hushmail communication to contact him regarding Venezuela due to the sensitivity of using a revolutionary NGO as a source considering we have clients who operate in country,” Papic said in a January 2011 email of Popovic.

Stratfor grew so enamored of CANVAS’s ability to foment regime change abroad that it invited Popovic to its Austin headquarters in 2010 to give seminars on the subject, and paid for his trip there.

CANVAS’s Goldman Sachs Cash

One of CANVAS’s major funders is Muneer Satter, a former Goldman Sachs executive who stepped down from that position in June 2012 and now owns Satter Investment Management LLC. Stratfor CEO Shea Morenz worked for ten years at Goldman Sachs as well, where he served as Managing Director in the Investment Management Division and Region Head for Private Wealth Management for the Southwest Region.

Satter is meanwhile a major funder of the Republican Party, giving over $300,000 to Karl Rove’s Super PAC Crossroads GPS before the 2012 election, and another $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association in the first half of 2013 prior to the 2014 mid-term elections.

Living in a massive, $9.5 million mansion in Chicago’s North Shore suburb of Lake Michigan, Muneer also gave $50,000 toward President Obama’s inaugural fund in 2009.

When it came time to connect Muneer with the global intelligence firm, Popovic served as the middle man introducing Satter to Stratfor Chairman George Friedman.

“Whenever I want to understand the details behind world events, I turn to Stratfor,” reads an endorsement from Satter on Stratfor’s website. “They have the most detailed and insightful analysis of world affairs and are miles ahead of mainstream media.”

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Roger Casement

Feb. 26, 2014 10:09 am

Continued...

Otpor!: A Counter-History

To understand how Popovic came to aide Stratfor in its intelligence-gathering efforts, it’s crucial to examine Otpor! and CANVAS critically. A close examination demonstrates that Popovic was a natural choice to be a Stratfor informant and close advisor.

Often valorized by grassroots activists and Western media, there was far more to the “Bulldozer Revolution” that led to the overthrow of Miloševic' and subsequent Eastern European regimes than meets the eye.

“In principle, [Serbia] was an overt operation, funded by congressional appropriations of around $10 million for fiscal 1999 and $31 million for 2000. Some Americans involved in the anti-Milosevic effort said they were aware of CIA activity at the fringes of the campaign, but had trouble finding out what the agency was up to,” explained a 2000 investigative piece appearing in The Washington Post.

“The lead role was taken by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign assistance agency, which channeled the funds through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).”

“In fact between 1997 and 2000 the National Endowment for Democracy and US government may have accomplished what NATO’s 37,000 bombing sorties had been unable to do: oust Milosevic, replace him with their favoured candidate Vojislav Kostunica and promote a neoliberal vision for Serbia,” independent scholar Michael Barker wrote for Z Magazine. “In much the same way as corporate front groups and astroturf groups recruit genuinely committed supporters, strategically useful social movements can potentially dominate civil society when provided with the right resources (massive financial and professional backing).”

Otpor! was so successful that it was ushered into Ukraine to help manufacture regime change there in 2004, using the template applied originally in Serbia with $65 million in cash from the U.S. government.

“We trained them in how to set up an organization, how to open local chapters, how to create a ‘brand,’ how to create a logo, symbols, and key messages,” an Otpor! activist told U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. “We trained them in how to identify the key weaknesses in society and what people’s most pressing problems were—what might be a motivating factor for people, and above all young people, to go to the ballot box and in this way shape their own destiny.”

The overthrow of Miloševic' was accompanied by U.S.-funding for the creation of a robust media apparatus in Serbia, and Popovic’s wife worked at one of the U.S.-funded radio and TV outlets as a journalist and anchor B92 from 2004-2009.

“By helping Radio B92 and linking it with a network of radio stations (ANEM), international assistance undermined the regime’s direct and indirect control over news and information,” a January 2004 policy paper released by USAID explained. “In Serbia, independent media supported by USAID and other international donors facilitated the regime change.”

Critics point out that what happened in Eastern Europe was regime change, not revolution in any real sense of the term.

“[They] were not revolutions at all; actually, they were little more than intra-elite power transfers,’” Portland State University Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, Gerald Sussman, explained in his book, “Branded Democracy: U.S. Regime Change in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe.”

“Modern tactics of electioneering were employed to cast regime change as populist, which took advantage of the unstable and vulnerable situations in those regions following the breakup of the Soviet Union,” he wrote.

Given Otpor!’s ties to powerful factions in the U.S. government, perhaps it’s unsurprising that Popovic felt comfortable giving a lecture to the Air Force Academy in May 2010, and attending a National Security Council meeting in December 2009.

A powerful individual who lobbied the U.S. government to give money to CANVAS early on was Michael McFaul, the current U.S. Ambassador to Russia for the State Department and someone who “worked closely with” Popovic while serving as a Senior Fellow at theright-wing Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Critics Chime In, Popovic Responds

Maryam Alkhawaja, director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said she had known Popovic for several years as an activist and had no knowledge of his outside relationships before the Wikileaks release of Stratfor emails.

“Srdja is someone I’ve met more than once. He was very supportive of the Bahrain revolution, supportive of the human rights fight,” Alkhawaja said in a phone interview. “When he gave me their information, that’s what surprised me the most.”

Alkhawaja said that at the time she wasn’t aware of what kind of firm Stratfor was, but she became immediately suspicious after reading Stratfor’s questions to her. She never corresponded with Stratfor due to what she felt was the suspicious nature of the emails coming from the firm.

“It was a series of really weird intelligence agency-like questions, given that they knew I was working in a human rights group. They were asking questions like, who’s funding the party coalition, how many members do they have, questions that even I didn’t know the answers to,” she said. “The fact that they asked questions like that, made me question the motive behind the email I received. That’s why I never responded.”

“Whenever we get emails like that or were contacted by people who seemed very interested in asking intelligence agency-like questions, we usually block them, because we know they probably work for the government,” Alkhawaja continued. “Journalists know the kind of work we do so they wouldn’t ask those questions in the first place. I just found the email very weird and thats why I actually never responded.”

In a Skype interview, one of Otpor!’s co-founders, who left the movement and asked to maintain his confidentiality, said his primary concern from the Wikileaks emails was that Popovic was giving out activists’ information to a third party without their prior consent.

An interview with Popovic sang a different tune about CANVAS. He stated, “We definitely wouldn’t jeopardize any of our activists’ safety, so we always follow their lead and never expose them to anybody without their consent.”

Popovic also said CANVAS would speak to anyone and everyone—without any discrimination—about nonviolent direct action.

“CANVAS will present anywhere — to those committed to activism and nonviolent struggle, but also to those who still live in the Cold War era and think that tanks and planes and nukes shape the world, not the common people leading popular movements,” he said.

“If we can persuade any decision maker in the world, in Washington, Kremlin, Tel Aviv or Damascus that it is nonviolent struggle that they should embrace and respect – not foreign military intervention, or oppression over own population – we would do that.”

Yet, given Popovic’s track-record—and specifically, who buttered his bread during the long professional career he pursued in activism—critics say Popovic fit like a glove at Stratfor.

“A group of Serbs cannot lead a protest movement anywhere outside Serbia, but his techniques are nonetheless instrumental in helping achieve certain political aims,” Professor Sussman said in an interview. “He also serves as an intelligence gatherer in the process—of use to private and state intelligence agencies. That’s what Stratfor saw as his use.”

…Complaining that their profits were being “confiscated” due to the intractable political power of Germany’s unions, big business threatened to stop investing altogether unless the government, increasingly impotent amidst the intensifying crisis, weakened labor’s hand. Indeed, late Weimar was characterized by vicious street-fighting between communists and fascists, united in their shared hatred of the collapsing center but attempting to resolve the crisis in diametrically opposed ways. Notably, only the former were aggressively persecuted by the state, as state leaders, Junkers, and industrialists increasingly understood that only the fascists did not fundamentally threaten the capitalist order but could in fact be used to preserve it (albeit not always on the old guard’s terms) via fascism’s mass appeal. While the Comintern’s description of Hitler as the mere “puppet” of capital has been long rejected as a crude oversimplification, Turner notes that Franz von Papen, the principal politician in orchestrating Hitler’s appointment, indeed “had come to enjoy the virtually unanimous and enthusiastic support of big business.”

And whereas some observers were misled by the inclusion of “Socialist” in the Nazi moniker, this only reflected a cynical device to attract members of the massive German left – that is, those rejecting capitalism and nationalism (whatever sincere anti-capitalist Nazis there were would be eliminated by the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives”). Indeed, the combined Socialist and Communist (SPD/KPD) vote surpassed the Nazi vote in 1932, and as the Nazi vote declined in the November 1932 election it appeared to most observers that Hitler had missed his opening.

It was here, in January 1933, that Hitler was finally appointed chancellor, whereupon he immediately banned independent unions, froze wages, sent socialists and communists to concentration camps, and resolved the ongoing business-labor arbitration crisis to the exclusive benefit of business. Resolving Germany’s domestic capitalist crisis by weakening labor, confiscating wealth, and destroying obstacles to accumulation while replacing class consciousness with national-racial consciousness, the Nazis’ driving geopolitical aim was the destruction of the “Judeobolshevist” Soviet Union. And the Nazis indeed ultimately murdered over 20 million Soviets, including 3.3 million out of 5.7 million POWs, destroyed 70,000 villages, 30,000 factories, and the USSR’s 20 largest cities in what Arno Mayer describes as a “crusade.”

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

The indigenous people of Crimea are the Crimean Tatars not the Russian colonists settled there starting in the 19th century. Crimean Tatars were an overwhelming majority of the population of the territory as late as 1863. Indeed, the 1939 Soviet census still showed Russians as a minority of the population of the Crimean ASSR which was a multi-ethnic territory that functioned as the national-territorial formation of the Crimean Tatars. It was only after the NKVD managed to ethnically cleanse the peninsula of Germans, Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Armenians and settle their lands with ethnic Russians that Russians became a majority of the population of Crimea. In 1941, the NKVD deported the ethnic Germans who had lived in Crimea as long as the Russians to Kazakhstan. This was followed by the Nazi occupation and the murder of most of the peninsula's Jewish population including the indigenous Crimean Tatar speaking Krymchaks. Finally, in 1944 the Stalin regime deported the Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians and settled Russians in their place afterwards. It is only as a result of this ethnic cleansing and colonization that Russians became a majority of the population of Crimea. So if Crimea belongs to any one national group it is certainly not the Russians. It is the Crimean Tatars and they have expressed an overwhelming desire to keep their homeland as part of the Ukrainian state.

Also, the Eastern Part of Ukraine was always Ukrainian, otherwise Stalin's 1931-1932 Holodomor would not have been able to be staged in the territories in and around Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, and such. I suppose that the Ukrainians that survived the horrific famine would have spoken any language that they were told to speak, and would have done anything that they were told to do. Plus, Russians from Russia were brought in to Eastern Ukraine to resettle it.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Antifascist

Feb. 27, 2014 2:41 pm

The United States of America has nothing to offer the Ukrainians. Ukrainians already have an oligarchy, mafia politicians, crony capitalism, unemployment, and debt.

The American oligarchy employed the same modus operandi in the Ukraine as in the United States: finance extremist right-wing groups through NGOs, spread agitation propaganda, sabotage the economy to create social volatility to front run a coup, mask fascist uprising as a populist movement, use media to promote nationalism to suppress counter movements, and exploit historical conflicts to incite culture wars causing domestic unrest.

Reality on the ground in Ukraine contradicts the incompetent and immoral Obama regime’s portrait of Ukrainian democracy on the march.

To the extent that government exists in post-coup Ukraine, it is laws dictated by gun and threat wielding thugs of the neo-Nazi, Russophobic, ultra-nationalist, right-wing parties. Watch the video of the armed thug, Aleksandr Muzychko, who boosts of killing Russian soldiers in Chechnya, dictating to the Rovno regional parliament a grant of apartments to families of protesters.

Read about the neo-nazis intimidating the Central Election Commission in order to secure rule and personnel changes in order to favor the ultra-right in the forthcoming elections. Thug Aleksandr Shevchenko informed the CEC that armed activists will remain in CEC offices in order to make certain that the election is not rigged against the neo-nazis. What he means, of course, is the armed thugs will make sure the neo-nazis win. If the neo-nazis don’t win, the chances are high that they will take power regardless.

Members of President Yanukovich’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, have been shot, had arrest warrants issued for them, have experienced home invasions and physical threats, and are resigning in droves in hopes of saving the lives of themselves and their families. The prosecutor’s office in the Volyn region (western Ukraine) has been ordered by ultra-nationalists to resign en masse .

Jewish synagogs and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches are being attacked.

To toot my own horn, I might have been the first and only to predict that Washington’s organization of pro-EU Ukrainian politicians into a coup against the elected government of Ukraine would destroy democracy and establish the precedent that force prevails over elections, thereby empowering the organized and armed extreme right-wing.

This is precisely what has happened. Note that there was no one in the Obama regime who had enough sense to see the obvious result of their smug, self-satisfied interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine....

(The Peterson Institute is founded by Peter G. Peterson, David Rockefeller successor as Chairman of the CFR, co-founder of the BlackStone Group, which owns Black Rock Inc., one of the Big Four multi-trillion dollar hedgefunds - the others being Vanguard, Fidelity and State Street. I think Rock in BlackRock stands for Rockefeller.)

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

The efforts of radical forces and the self-imposed government in Kiev to forcefully overthrow local authorities in the East are unacceptable and endanger the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council.

“In the eastern part of Ukraine and Crimea in particular we have seen the emergence of people from Kiev with a clear intention of repeating what has been happening in the Western part of Ukraine, they want to replace regional governments,” Churkin said, adding that the Crimea authorities have asked Russia to provide assistance to ensure peace and order in the region.

Russia’s envoy pointed out that nationalist radical forces are widely represented in what remains of the formerly legitimate authorities in Kiev, and called on the UN Security Council members to influence those forces to refrain from the use of violence.

There was a number of attempts by gunmen to raid and seize local government buildings, fenced off by the self-defence squads in Crimea, and the developments prompted local authorities to consolidate armed forces in the region and ask for Russia’s assistance.

Russia’s parliament authorized the use of limited stabilizing military forces “on the territory of Ukraine” until the “normalization of the socio-political situation”, however the Russian President has not yet ordered such a deployment, Churkin added.

Churkin emphasized that his counterparts’ claims and speculations of Russia using or planning to use military forces “against” Ukraine are completely wrong and biased. The Russian president has already spoken about the Ukraine crisis with world leaders including US President Obama and told them about the threat to Russian citizens’ lives.

Churkin urged the sides to sit “with cool heads” and go back to the latest decision of Ukraine’s legitimate government of February 21, and, as was agreed with opposition forces, to establish a national unity government.

The members of the UN Security Council pushed for an open session on Saturday, giving the Ukrainian ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev a chance to publicly accuse Russia of a "military intervention" and build a case for the legitimate representatives of council member states to further grill Russian authorities.

The US ambassador Samantha Power has claimed that Russian actions are “violating the sovereignty of Ukraine and threaten international peace and security," and called for "immediate deployment" of UN and OSCE observers in Crimea. The day before US President delivered his own “aggressive” remarks on the situation, over which Russian senators are now urging Putin to consider recalling Moscow’s Ambassador to the US.

The UN Secretary General in the meantime has called for an “immediate restoration of calm and direct dialogue between all concerned to solve the current crisis.”

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

….On 23 February of this year in Kiev there took place a coup d'état in which armed neo-Nazi militants surrounded and took over Parliament and forced the parliamentarians, under duress, to replace the elected government with opposition figures who were supported and promoted by the EU representatives and the US State Department. Representatives of the party of the overthrown government—the Party of Regions—were threatened into resigning....

…Now let's look back exactly 81 years. On February 23, 1933, somebody set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin (the fire was blamed on the Communists, but this remains far from proven and the event is commonly suspected to have been a false flag operation). A day later, Hitler used the fire as an excuse to assume emergency powers and to flush the Communists from government, giving the National Socialists a majority. February 23, 1933 is the day remembered as the definitive turning point in the rise of fascism in Europe, setting it on course for World War II and the loss of millions of lives...

...In light of all this, some people might wonder: were the people in Washington and in Brussels always eager to favor fascists, or is this a new thing for them? I believe the answer is that it doesn't matter. Their assigned job is to destroy countries, and this they do well. They have destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria, but these are small, and the beast is still hungry. They would love to destroy Iran, but that has turned out too tough a nut to crack. And so they have now set their sights on larger prey: Venezuela and Ukraine. And the reason they have to continue destroying countries is so that the process of wealth destruction, which is inevitable as the world runs short of critical resources, can run its course some place other than the West's economic heartlands in the US and Northern Europe. It matters very little to them whether they have to support al Qaeda fighters in Libya and Syria or fascists in Ukraine; it's all the same to them....

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by drc2

Mar. 2, 2014 4:59 pm

But, I keep hearing about how democracy was being threatened so we had to have a coup to save it, and now the brave Russian Ukrainians are telling Putin to keep the troops at home. Don't you get that warm and fuzzy feeling that somewhere 'democracy' is being implemented by those who have been yearning to be part of the West against all that oppression from the East? I know, it feels good, and then your head spins and you have to puke.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

….On 23 February of this year in Kiev there took place a coup d'état in which armed neo-Nazi militants surrounded and took over Parliament and forced the parliamentarians, under duress, to replace the elected government with opposition figures who were supported and promoted by the EU representatives and the US State Department. Representatives of the party of the overthrown government—the Party of Regions—were threatened into resigning....

…Now let's look back exactly 81 years. On February 23, 1933, somebody set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin (the fire was blamed on the Communists, but this remains far from proven and the event is commonly suspected to have been a false flag operation). A day later, Hitler used the fire as an excuse to assume emergency powers and to flush the Communists from government, giving the National Socialists a majority. February 23, 1933 is the day remembered as the definitive turning point in the rise of fascism in Europe, setting it on course for World War II and the loss of millions of lives...

...And the reason they have to continue destroying countries is so that the process of wealth destruction, which is inevitable as the world runs short of critical resources, can run its course some place other than the West's economic heartlands in the US and Northern Europe.

Excellent article, don't know if I agree with the last conclusion though. There is so much oil out there (47.1 billion barrels in Libya alone) that I don't see how we're running out. The same thing with water - if we're running out of water, why are they pushing fracking, which can destroy entire aquifers?

What I think is what we're seeing, is the attempt by the elites to destroy countries they cannot control. If you read the maps in Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1998 book The Grand Chessboard, you see he wants to destroy any organized state east of Poland - that includes Russia, China and India.

Zbigniew Brzezinski (co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission, National Security Advisor to President Carter), at the Peter G. Peterson Institute - Peter G. Peterson is the former CEO/Chairman of the board of directors of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, followed David Rockefeller as Chairman of the Council of Foreign Relations (where David Rockefeller is still Honorary Chairman), and is the co-founder with Stephen Schwartz, also of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, of the BlackStone Group, which owns BlackRock Inc, one of the world's Big Four multi-trillion dollar hedgefunds (the others are Vanguard, Fidelity and State Street). I think the Rock in BlackRock stands for Rockefeller.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by nora

Mar. 3, 2014 2:59 am

The Elites love Destabilization and Slavery and they always have.

And the Elites are doing it in the USA too -- destabilizing Wisconsin and Michigan. And gaining Privatization all over through the desperation inflicted through their Gatt job and industry theft, 2008 mortgage scam and ongoing free fall into the derivative hell and the continuing bail outs under the term Quantitative Easing.

They just LOVE to destabilize our communities, cultures and government structures for their future profit.

Is this so different than the Slaver Mentality that destabilized West Africa for profit in past centuries? It is the same crew with a new variation on the theme. (And actually, Slavery for Pure Profit was something that was already a long part of European History when Europeans adopted the disgusting pretense of European racial and cultural superiority they foisted on the rest of the world.)

What's new is the control of media and control of the information and education to such an extreme that even larger numbers of people seem unaware of this insanity than before. They have now gone beyond the illusions created by the priests of ancient temples that made temples seem otherworldly -- like steam gizmos to make statues fly. Now they use the media to create the appearance of reality about the their staged events like 9/11 -- event they want us to see/feel; or, worse still in my estimation, deny us information on their greed-caused disasters like the BP GULF OFFSHORE DRILLING DISASTER and the FUKUSHIMA MELTDOWN which go under reported.

This blog and the posts here are really great. I've been reading them and coming back. So many details and proofs. But at some level I get a thought that asks 'Why aren't these details enough? Why isn't the repeated pattern of predation throughout history adequate for the majority of people to stand up and say "ENOUGH"?

There's that movie, The Magnificent Seven where some villagers hire some cowboys to defend their village against a band of thugs; and then, finally at the end of the movie, only the villagers could really get rid of the thugs.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Antifascist

Mar. 3, 2014 5:16 pm

The oligarchs always turn to Neofascist groups as proxies to gain power. Of course oligarchs really do not want to share power with the fascists, they but need them beat back liberal/progressive movements threatening to shut down the oligarchy. The third stage of fascism developing in host societies according to Robert Paxton is the “Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power.” Conservatives think they can use and control the fascist proxies, but as in the case of Nazi Germany, Hitler out smarted the Weimar Conservatives and overtook the Reichstag. Neoliberal oligarchs are appealing to reactionary Right-Wing extremists and Neofascist groups to push through Neoliberal shock therapy economic programs. In the United States the Koch/Perkins/Thiel/Zell/Adelson/Peterson/Arnold/Munger billionaires are subsidizing the Tea Party, Republican Conservatives, the old Klu Klux Klan racists, separatists, survivalists, and Christo-Fascists.

Here are some extracts from Economist Michael Hudson and Sommers’ article to highlight the Neoliberal plan to loot EU and East European countries.

...Since the USSR's collapse, the "reset" has been changed many times during our long-running Ukrainian "play," but the underlying theme remains the same as it has been in the Near East: Play the ethnic card to break the country into pieces if you want to disable government regulatory power and investment. Co-opt a client oligarchy whose opportunities for the West lie in privatizing public resources and selling shares in the rent-extracting companies on Western stock exchanges. Keep your proceeds in the West and fritter it away on trophy real estate, ownership of sports clubs and London or Swiss bank accounts.

…Rotating oligarchs shift in and out of this scenario, replacing one another in the rolling sequence of "color revolutions." While Russian and Ukrainian nationalists spar in "Spy vs. Spy" fashion, Ukraine's economy unravels and its people continue their exodus on an Old Testament scale to the Promised Land of the EU. Following Horace Greeley's advice of "Go West, young man," Ukrainians have joined the multitudes of "Polish plumbers" in the UK.

…When ethnic Ukrainians look to the EU as their savior, they have lost their sense of timing. They are seeing the last vestiges of a "Social Europe" that has been sacrificed on the altar of neoliberalism. Yanukovych had been urged to raise the VAT and tax labor all the more, but he resisted in order to prevent earlier popular unrest. Now that the Ukraine promises to move under Western neoliberal tutelage, the first policies that one can expect are higher taxes on labor and consumers - and an accelerated capital flight out of the country to the Eurozone and Switzerland.

…Having suffered a generation under Stalin and his successors, Ukrainians will now be able to compare that to the hand of IMF central planners. Who needs a military thrust when a new round of shock therapy and austerity will do the trick more deftly?

…Yanukovych is the kind of kleptocrat that neoliberals promised would enrich the post-Soviet states, except he committed the unforgivable sin of refusing to implement an EU/US-counseled austerity program. The aim is to transfer public wealth into the hands of private individuals who will be steered by the "Invisible Hand" (that of the sponsors of today's color revolutions) to seek their gains by selling what they have taken to Western investors. Finance is the new mode of warfare, and we are seeing a grab for what military invasions in times past aimed at: land, natural resources and infrastructure monopolies.

…Meanwhile, the reappearance of Yulia Tymeshenko (who gained stature in jail) represents the return of ethnic Ukrainian oligarchs. They have been promised that they can get even richer by paying foreign bondholders - no doubt with an IMF or ECB destabilization program that will impose deep enough austerity to create an Irish-style Lost Generation.

There is little likelihood of national economic development. The aim is to empty out the nation's capital, not create it. There will be no more consideration of Modern Monetary Theory or Land Value Tax alternatives. The US/EU plan is the same neoliberal strategy designed to demilitarize the post-Soviet states by de-industrializing them and driving their population to emigrate.

"Structural adjustment" (today's euphemism for austerity) will continue loading down Ukraine with debt, using it as a lever to control its economic policy. Meanwhile, Russia offers debt relief (or at least more loans) without development, because it itself still partially remains under the thrall of neoliberalism.

Russia and Ukraine would benefit from an alternative economic policy based on regional capital investment in economic development. Russia and Ukraine need to halt the capital flight of their oligarchs to offshore banking sites in places such as London and Riga, and instead mobilize their natural resources, real estate and monopoly rents for domestic investment. Such moves would be denounced by the epicenters of "tax dumping" (London and New York). Currently, the IMF/European Central Bank wants supersede post-Soviet governments as their new central planners whose results can only accelerate kleptocratic looting!

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

Robles:How can they do that when they are supporting neo-nazis who are openly calling for the killing of Jews, and the killing of blacks, and the killing of Russians in the streets? How can they compare Putin to hitler? He had to deploy troops to protect the approximately 80% Russian speaking population in Crimea, who these guys were threatening to annihilate and kill?

Boyle: This is all part of the game plan here, John. These spokes people, these experts, we discussed this before, Brzezinskiy is in ex-patriot Pole who hates the Russians with a passion and wants to break up the Russian Federation. But unfortunately he is the top guru in the Democratic Party on Foreign Affairs, he is Obama’s mentor, ran his campaign and everyone in this administration is acceptable to him.

So immediately after Brzezinskiy and Albright invoked Munich and Hitler and Sudetenland all the rest of US news media lock-step just jumped right on.

Robles:Just a reminder,you are listening to an interview with Professor Francis Boyle.

Boyle: So what we are seeing here is an orchestrated, I would say war campaign propaganda, against Russia that I think looks somewhat ominous that they have further steps in mind.

We very well might see these neo-nazi thugs in Kiev invite NATO troops to enter Western Ukraine to allegedly defend them in Kiev and at that point Ukraine at least Western Ukraine will become a de facto member of NATO which has been their objective all along.

So it is an extremely dangerous situation, I think this is being orchestrated, they already have two US warships in the Black Sea, that they pre-positioned before the Olympics and a third one is on its way.

So, it is clear, their attitude is “we stole Kiev and Western Ukraine and we are going to keep it no matter what”.

Robles:I see. So, the Russian population, the Jewish population, all the other nationalities in Ukraine – they no longer have any human rights as long as NATO has an objective.

Boyle: That is correct. Now they are going to impose these IMF conditionalities on them, that even their puppet Yatsenyuk thinks this would be a political kamikaze, he knows it would be suicidal – reduce Ukraine far below what we are seeing going now on in Greece.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by drc2

Mar. 5, 2014 10:22 am

If people only couldn't see what was going on in Greece! "Austerity" always sounds like having to eat one's veggies or swallow some medicine, you know, stuff that is really good for you but which we would avoid without "discipline." Just don't spend so much. Or eat so much. Or get sick. Or get old.

So here comes the rhetoric about democracy again. Getting clear on how deep this Neoconism goes is good for us to know. Thanks again.

Michel Chossudovsky is an economist and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, based in Montreal, Quebec. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, War and Globalization: The Truth Behind September 11th and America’s War on Terrorism.

He is the author of many recent articles on the crisis in the Ukraine including “The US Has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine.” Today we discuss the political and economic crisis in the Ukraine, the involvement of the United States and the European Union in the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Ukraine president, the 2004 Orange Revolution in that country, its geography and the involvement of the International Monetary Fund and NATO in Ukraine’s history.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Roger Casement

Mar. 15, 2014 3:01 pm

The Ukrainians are merely switching a neoliberal tool for the former head of the Central Bank. This is 'The Greek Model' (switching George Papandreou for the Greek Central Bank's Lucas Papademos) being planned and implemented in Ukraine.

This is not democracy. People do not want austerity, and yet they get austerity, no matter who they vote for.

Behind incessant rhetorical invocations of a “democratic revolution,” Ukraine’s newly-installed government of former bankers, fascists and oligarchs is preparing draconian austerity measures.

The plans being drawn up are openly described as the “Greek model,” i.e., the programme of savage cuts imposed on Greece by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) that has caused Greece’s economy to collapse by nearly 25 percent in five years and produced a massive growth in unemployment and poverty.

In the case of Ukraine, however, this social devastation is to be unleashed against a country that has already been subjected to the scorched earth economics of capitalist restoration. Even before the latest events, Ukraine was the 80th poorest country in the world based on gross domestic product per capita, behind Iraq, Tonga and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

More than one quarter of its population—11 million people—live below the official poverty line, which is set at a meagre 1,176 UAH ($127) per month. The situation is far worse than official figures indicate, however. With an average monthly wage of only 1,218 UAH ($131), or 79 US cents per hour, millions more survive barely above subsistence level.

The official unemployment rate of 7.5 percent masks large numbers of unregistered and underemployed workers. It is, moreover, held down by high emigration, with tens of thousands fleeing the country in search of jobs. The equivalent of 15 percent of Ukraine’s population has left the country, giving it one of the largest diasporas in the world. Between 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved, and 2010, Ukraine’s population shrank from 51.7 million to 45.9 million.

Besides migration, the population decline is a consequence of Ukraine’s contracting birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world. Tragically, the country also has the highest maternal mortality rate in Europe, part of a health crisis that has seen incidences of HIV/AIDS grow to epidemic proportions, with 57 new cases a day identified in 2012.

Poverty has played a major role in the spread of HIV/AIDS—especially in parts of the formerly heavily industrialised regions of the east and south, where conditions are already depression-like.

In poverty’s wake has come an explosion of all manner of social diseases—from drug abuse and alcoholism to prostitution, with every sixth prostitute reckoned to be a minor. This is an underestimation, as Ukraine is a major hub of human trafficking, for the purposes of both sexual exploitation and forced labour.

These conditions are a direct consequence of the counterrevolutionary role of the Stalinist bureaucracy and its betrayal of the October 1917 Revolution, which reached its climax in the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism.

As a result, Ukraine has been reduced to a pawn in US and European imperialist designs on Russia. In addition to the dangers of civil war and a global military conflagration, Western-backed efforts to pull Ukraine away from Russia have caused ever greater social misery for the masses, first in the aftermath of the so-called “Orange Revolution” of 2004, and then in the wake of the 2008 global capitalist breakdown.

Between 2008 and 2009, for example, Ukraine’s GDP fell by 15.1 percent while unemployment tripled to 9.4 percent. The former Stalinist bureaucrats and mafia-oligarchs who enriched themselves by stealing former state property have continued all the while to plunder state assets and pile up even greater personal fortunes.

Much worse is to come. Ukraine’s total debt is now estimated to be around $80 billion. With its currency having depreciated by 20 percent on the dollar since the start of the year, depleting currency reserves and increasing capital flight, Ukraine’s debt will rapidly grow even larger.

The IMF and EU are said to be working on a “rescue” package of just $15 billion. Not only is most of this earmarked to cover repayments to the Western banks, it is also tied in to massive cuts in spending for pensions and fuel subsidies. Since 1998, Ukraine has been involved in various IMF “structural reform” programmes, all of which have had to be abandoned within one year because their consequences were considered too socially explosive.

It was what former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov described as the “extremely harsh conditions” of a renewed IMF loan brought forward on November 20 last year that led to the government’s decision to put off signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. That decision, in turn, became the pretext for the US- and EU-sponsored protests and resulting putsch.

The Western powers now intend to seize the moment they did so much to engineer. Writing in the Financial Times in February, Anders Aslund, a former adviser to the Ukrainian government, welcomed the Western-backed coup as an opportunity to impose austerity. The crisis in Ukraine meant that a “radical reform programme should be easier to undertake… than in many countries that have faced similar crises in the past,” he wrote.

The New York Times, the mouthpiece of American imperialism, cracked the whip in an editorial published Friday under the headline “Fixing Ukraine’s Economy: The country’s leaders need to reform wrongheaded energy and exchange-rate policies.” The editorial denounced “wasteful energy subsidies” and demanded that the Western-installed puppet government get to work “raising retail gas prices for most consumers.”

An IMF mission has already been at work over the last fortnight, meeting with the minister of energy and coal and representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine and the gas distributor Naftogaz. It reports that its work is “progressing well” and that the new authorities are committed to “economic reform.”

These “reforms” include further currency devaluation, major cuts in public spending and pensions and, in particular, an end to state energy subsidises, which are a life-and-death matter in a country where temperatures can fall as low as minus 20 degrees.

The Financial Times reports, “Sixty state agencies in various EU countries have already concluded so-called twinning agreements that aim to refashion their Ukrainian counterparts in their image.”

A 10 percent collapse in GDP is publicly spoken of by economists. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, handpicked by Washington to replace the ousted elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, has stated baldly that he will be “the most unpopular prime minister in the history of my country.”

Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is the former head of the Central Bank, the National Bank of Ukraine. - RC

Sergei Taruta, the oligarch recently appointed governor of the Donbass region, gave an indication of the timeframe for implementing these measures. Describing himself as an “anti-crisis manager,” he said he would take the post only “for six months or a year,” adding, “In that time I want strong people to come into government and then I will leave them to it.”

His comments shed light on why the US and the EU powers are so willing to sign off on a government staffed by fascists and extreme-right paramilitaries. On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament voted to establish a 60,000-strong National Guard recruited from “activists” in the anti-Russian protests and from military academies.

The force will be overseen by the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy, a founder in the early 1990s of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine. His deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector. It is the Ukrainian equivalent of Hitler’s storm troopers.

In addition to aiding the West in its provocations against Moscow, the main responsibility of these elements will be to carry through a social onslaught against the Ukrainian working class at the behest of international capital.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Alberto Ceras 2

Mar. 26, 2014 7:58 am

Why treat Vicky so shabbily, guys? No one, not even B.O. hisself, has worked harder to promote neo-fascist Israel's interests in the new and glorious U.S. bankrolled Ukraine. Why, in addition to the U.S.’ billions dear Vicky also toted in a huge plastic shopping bag chock full of bread – the eatable sort – for the famished topplers of the democratically elected government. Bloody fucking Ms. Kagan, a patriot (of some country or other) for our time.

According to publicly available information Greystone Limited is a structural part of Blackwater, that was later renamed into Academi. According to military experts, the company is associated with the CIA and the US Defense Department. Its employees participated in the war in Afghanistan after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, the company has appeared in Iraq and became involved in training the new Iraqi armed forces and police, as well as support of the occupation forces.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by William King

Mar. 26, 2014 8:15 am

That video by antifascist is very telling and it exposes what a pathetic global monster our government has turned into. I knew we chose the wrong path once we invaded Iraq, but with all this talk about the "war on terrorism" I never figured we would get behind terrorists in other countiries to topple their own leadership. This group we are backing does sound a lot like the Nazis before WW2. What really is making my scratch my head is the anti-Jew talk these "leaders" are using. Jews basically own our country and the entire news media and so all of our military actions in the middle east have been to help Israel (sure we are securing oil fileds too, but the Jewish controlled fox News went apeshit over the Iraq war in promooting it). Why on earth would the Jewish population back a Nazi regime change?

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by drc2

Mar. 26, 2014 9:44 am

Jews do not "basically" or in any other way "own our country." AIPAC and Israel serve the Cold War interests of a lot of WASPy elites who do "own our country," so try to keep the "Jewish Banker" memes under control. Even if there are Jewish people among the bankster class, this instiution is not "Jewish" or anything to do with that canard. It is old time WASP pirate and slave trade money and the money lenders only work on the side of this game.

I have plenty of problems with AIPAC and the criminal behavior and arrogance of the State of Israel. Again, it has more to do with European colonialism than with Jewishness. It could be all the wrong lessons of the Holocaust, but the sick synergy of Cold War interests has made Fortress Israel all we know of Israeli politics. Making criticism of Israel identical to 'anti-Semitism' and treating Israel as if all Jews stood together behind aggressive Zionism has been the media approach.

I guess we just dismiss the Nazi elements in Ukraine as if they were like our own neo-s and fringe militia nuts. After all, we don't need these 'fascists' ruining the press for our actual fascists. I am sure the real Ukrainian leadership does not goose-step in public. They are "our" Nazis, as well, so they are just a sideshow act we can ignore. AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

Jews basically own our country and the entire news media and so all of our military actions in the middle east have been to help Israel (sure we are securing oil fileds too, but the Jewish controlled fox News went apeshit over the Iraq war in promooting it). Why on earth would the Jewish population back a Nazi regime change?

Please, William King, distinguish between Jews and Israel. If you cannot then have the decency to erase your comment. It makes me want to puke.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

That video by antifascist is very telling and it exposes what a pathetic global monster our government has turned into. I knew we chose the wrong path once we invaded Iraq, but with all this talk about the "war on terrorism" I never figured we would get behind terrorists in other countiries to topple their own leadership. This group we are backing does sound a lot like the Nazis before WW2. What really is making my scratch my head is the anti-Jew talk these "leaders" are using. Jews basically own our country and the entire news media and so all of our military actions in the middle east have been to help Israel (sure we are securing oil fileds too, but the Jewish controlled fox News went apeshit over the Iraq war in promooting it). Why on earth would the Jewish population back a Nazi regime change?

Because they don't.

We are talking about a very small elite of people, who couldn't care less about anyone who isn't within their own circles, whatever their religion or ethnicity.

What Victoria Nuland has been doing in Ukraine is extremely dangerous to anyone who is Russian, Polish, or Jewish in Ukraine - and she is Jewish herself. She doesn't care about getting nazis into power in Ukraine.

Because before anything else, she was appointed by Dick Cheney of PNAC, and married to Robert Kagan of PNAC. PNAC's views can be charitably described as fringe, in any country, including Israel. So again, it isn't 'the Jews'.

Dick Cheney works for David Rockefeller, and he used to be a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, where David Rockefeller is Honorary Chairman. David Rockefeller's family founded what are today ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco-Philips, JPMorgan Chase.

Just follow the money all the way to the top, and you find who is doing this.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by Antifascist

Mar. 27, 2014 10:42 am

As Mark Twain once said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

I was wondering when this issue would come up. In fact, when Nazi extremist Oleksander Muzychko was shot and killed, I wondered if this is the start of a purge. All the Ukrainian players are unknown to me, but this new Ukrainian leadership that took power by violence will likely face the same struggle for power as the German Hitlarian Nazis faced during the 1930s. When the oligarchs cannot dominate the legitimate government, they turn to the fascists because they are willing to use naked violence to seize power. However, the fascist street thugs that bloodied their hands taking power have a sense of entitlement after the successful coup and expect a share of power as reward, but the oligarchs no longer need the fascists and are embarrassed by these street thugs like Oleksander Muzychko. The fascists want to take over the military, but the professional soldiers of the old government know that the fascists are just a criminal class and want nothing to do with them. Now there is a division among the regular army and these newly victorious revolutionaries. The regular army will reject the fascists, and the fascists will feel betrayed by the oligarchs and so internal conflict mounts. In Germany, Hitler sided with the professional military, the Reichswehr, and purged leader Ernst Rohm’s Sturmabteilung (SA), and the paramilitarybrownshirts. With Hitler’s approval his Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) murdered Ernst Rohm and his Brownshirts in the “Night of The Long Knives” in 1934.

Below is an article by Olga Shedrova that draw some parallels between the Ukrainian Nazis, and Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives.

A northern oil route out of Iran/Central Asia would be a direct economic challenge to the existence of both Saudi Arabia and Israel.

2) Greater Israel

The only way to populate a Greater Israel, which would stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates, is to have a second Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

Of course that's just speculation. However, you have to wonder how Victoria Nuland getting nazis and fascists into power in Ukraine makes any sense. Of course we're also getting jihadis into power in Libya, Syria, etc. Same reason?

The pro-Russian separatist leader of Donetsk, whose alleged signature is on the now notorious fliers calling on the eastern Ukrainian city's Jews to register on pain of deportation, said the documents were fakes, the ThinkProgress website reported Thursday.
The full text is available for subscribers & registered users.

Two Jewish men read prayers in a synagogue in Donetsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 18, 2014. A leaflet distributed in Donetsk, Ukraine calling for all Jews over 16 years old to register as Jews marred the Jewish community's Passover festivities for Monday (Passover eve), replacing them with feelings of concern. Leaders of pro-Russian insurgents in Donetsk where leaflets were distributed flatly denied being behind the distribution, describing it as a fake and provocation. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

* By Jon Palmer
* Boston.com Staff
* April 18, 2014 6:47 AM

Concerns over rising tensions in Ukraine were exacerbated Thursday by reports that leaflets were distributed in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk instructing Jewish residents to “register” with the pro-Russian militants now barricaded in a government office there, or else face consequences.

USA Today cited two foreign news agencies, one Israeli and one Ukrainian, in reporting the content of the flyers:

Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency.

Reports of the flyers elicited a strong response from world leaders and members of Congress. During a press conference in Geneva, where four-party talks on the Ukraine crisis took place Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry denounced the anti-semitic leaflets as “grotesque.”According to CBS News, Kerry said:

"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable; it's grotesque," Kerry told reporters. "It is beyond unacceptable. And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities, from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of, there is no place for that."

What remains a mystery is the origin of the leaflets. They bear the signature of Denis Pushilin, chairman of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” as the group of pro-Russia protesters currently occupying government buildings in several Eastern Ukrainian cities and purportedly backed by Russia calls itself. However, though Pushilin confirmed the flyers were distributed in Donetsk, he has denied connection to them.

It is also unclear whether the men who distributed the flyers were affiliated with the DPR or simply provocateurs. One Israeli newspaper reported Pushilin confirmed that his organization did distribute the leaflets, though ThinkProgress.org claimed that he denies the DPR’s involvement; both claim he denied connection to the flyers’ anti-semitic content, and The Daily Beast quoted him as saying it “could have been the work of provocateurs hoping to discredit the pro-Russian movement.”

Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, tweeted Thursday night that belief in the authenticity of the document was becoming scarce:

The Anti-Defamation League also said in a statement that they are skeptical about the flyer’s authenticity, though did not say what group it believed to be responsible, noting that accusations of anti-semitism have been levied at both sides of the conflict:

"We have seen a series of cynical and politically manipulative uses and accusations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine over the past year," said Mr. Foxman. "The perpetrators and their targets are opposing politicians and political movements, but the true victims are the Jewish communities. We strongly condemn the anti-Semitic content, but also all attempts to use anti-Semitism for political purposes."

Russian media has consistently decried the new government in Kiev, which formed after violent protests in the capital, as being led by fascists and Nazis, a claim Kiev the west have consistently found not to be true.

In the days before the Geneva “de-escalation” conference (and coincidentally, days after the secret visit of CIA director Brennan to Kiev), the top story across western media was the “undisputed” proof that east-Ukraine, populated by “terrorist separatists”, is preparing to unleash a neo-nazi wave against local Jews, when a leaflet was unveiled, beckoning the Jewish population to register and declare their assets.

The USA Today promptly reported (joined by CBS and CNN): “Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city’s Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee “or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated,” reported Ynet News, Israel’s largest news website, and Ukraine’s Donbass news agency.”

Consequences for non-compliance will result in citizenship being revoked “and you will be forced outside the country with a confiscation of property,” it said. A registration fee of $50 would be required, it said.

Odd because as the same USA Today further reported, “Olga Reznikova, 32, a Jewish resident of Donetsk, told Ynet she never experienced anti-Semitism in the city until she saw this leaflet.”

Perversely, even the local Jewish community issued a statement saying the leaflet distribution “smells like a provocation.” The chief rabbi of nearby Dnipropetrovsk, Shmuel Kaminezki said, “Everything must be done to catch them.”

So the bottom line, namely that this was merely a provocation designed to generate a knee jerk emotional response from the west and paint the pro-Russia militia as neo-nazis and generally, as fascists (even though it was the ultra nationalist Right Sector that was instrumental in the overthrow of the Yanukovich government) was clear to most – even the population that was seemingly being targeted.

But not to John Kerry. “Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets “is beyond unacceptable” and condemned whomever is responsible.”

“In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable — it’s grotesque,” he said. “And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of — there is no place for that.”

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called the leaflets “the real deal.” But the man whose name appears on the leaflets, Denis Pushilin, identified as chairman of “Donetsk’s temporary government,” said he was not responsible.

“The real deal”… with the small exception that they were forged, in everything from the photoshopped stamp, to the fact that the person who allegedly signed the leaflets, Denis Pushilin – the Chair of the recently created Donetsk republic – explicitly stated he had nothing to do with this attempt to rile up anti-semitic sentiment in Donetsk.

Of course, with the CIA operating freely in Kiev, and having been rather instrumental in the establishment of the current political regime (as it did in the US-foreign policy “success stories” of Libya and Egypt), one can be sure that the provocations will only get more grotesque, surreal and most likely, violent from this point onward.

435345Deadly clashed broke out as the unelected regime occupying Kiev attempted to restart what it is calling “anti-terror” operations in eastern Ukraine where anti-fascist protesters have begun rising up. Several have been killed during clashes in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slavyansk where Kiev has set armored vehicles and helicopter gunships upon its own population.

The Western media continues to refer to those opposing the unelected regime in Kiev as “pro-Russian,” and continues to insist that the uprising in the east is either backed by Moscow or in fact, being carried out directly by Russians operating in Ukrainian territory. However, the US and EU have failed categorically to prove such claims with evidence, and have since been caught circulating falsified images and news in attempts to bolster their claims.

The current regime in Kiev came to power at the height of the so-called “Euromaidan” protests where admittedly armed Neo-Nazi militants seized power, ransacking the headquarters of their political opponents and driving out the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. While the armed, violent seizure of power was initially covered up by the Western media, the BBC itself would later admit in a short video report that indeed armed Neo-Nazi militants spearheaded the coup.

The nature of the regime in Kiev is also being papered over by the Western media, covering up the fact that the two main opposition parties that seized power, Svoboda and “Fatherland,” are in fact led by a collection of Neo-Nazis, bigots, racists, and anti-Semites. In a desperate attempt to cover up this lack of legitimacy, the West has sent many high level officials including a leading US Senator and the US Vice President to Kiev to lend both political and material support.

The latest visit by Vice President Joseph Biden appears to have been timed specifically to help coordinate a renewed push into eastern Ukraine, after Ukrainian troops surrendered en masse last week – refusing to carry out operations against their fellow countrymen. Reports indicate that Kiev has now turned to fanatical ultra-right militant groups in an attempt to put down growing unrest against the unelected regime. The Voice of Russia reported in its article, “Ukrainian Right Sector says it will join crackdown on pro-federalization protesters,” that:

The ultranationalist Ukrainian Right Sector movement said Thursday members of organization will join paramilitary units currently being formed to crackdown on pro-federalization protests in eastern Ukraine. The movement said in a statement on its website that its members will join so-called “battalions of territorial defense” and military units.

Right Sector was an important force at the Euromaidan protests that began in November in Kiev. Its members were notorious for using clubs, Molotov cocktails, and firearms against Ukrainian police during the protests, and for wearing Nazi-inspired insignia.

The use of fanatical, irregular forces, armored vehicles, and aircraft including warplanes and helicopter gunships, signifies an escalation of violence by Kiev against its own people through the use of clearly disproportionate force aimed at terrorizing the population. That the United States and European Union have spent the past 3 years engaged in what they called the “responsibility to protect” in both Libya and Syria, and are now backing a regime that is arraying military forces against its own people, marks a new low in both the impartial application of “international law” and the perceived legitimacy of the Western nations now increasingly involved in Ukraine’s political crisis.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

by William King

Apr. 30, 2014 10:04 am

Seems our Jingo Democrats have not done their homework on the past leaders of the Ukraine.

Everyone needs to understand that Russia brought peace to a country taken over by a bunch of fanatics. I guess they were cattleprodded by the US and the EU, but not to the point of actually sending them troops to help.

The thing with this issue is that you always have to wade through reams and reams of websites like DailyStormer, JewWatch, etc. :)) I think quite a few of these sites are paid to throw up a smokescreen and turn attention away from the families that own the oil companies.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

Quote Roger Casement:The thing with this issue is that you always have to wade through reams and reams of websites like DailyStormer, JewWatch, etc. :)) I think quite a few of these sites are paid to throw up a smokescreen and turn attention away from the families that own the oil companies.

Yes, I noticed by the titles of the articles on the Google page that they seemed to address an exhausting amount of roads going nowhere. Also, some just seemed to be bigot sites.

It would be interesting to know if the Kagans, and the historic, equally dark Kagan + ovich are related, though.

re: F*** The EU - Neocons And The Neonazi Ukrainian Coup

Quote Roger Casement:The thing with this issue is that you always have to wade through reams and reams of websites like DailyStormer, JewWatch, etc. :)) I think quite a few of these sites are paid to throw up a smokescreen and turn attention away from the families that own the oil companies.

Yes, I noticed by the titles of the articles on the Google page that they seemed to address an exhausting amount of roads going nowhere. Also, some just seemed to be bigot sites.

It would be interesting to know if the Kagans, and the historic, equally dark Kagan + ovich are related, though.

It turns out that Kagan is the Eastern European spelling of Cohen, which is in effect a clan name (there are a lot of people with the same name who aren't related). Kaganovich is from Ukraine, the Kagans are from Lithuania. I guess it was too perfect a correlation.

Western headlines have attempted to spin into ambiguity the death of over 30 anti-fascist Ukrainian protesters cornered and burned to death in the Trade Unions House in the southern port city of Odessa. The arson was carried out by Neo-Nazi mobs loyal to the unelected regime now occupying Kiev.

Both the London Guardian and the BBC attempted in their coverage to make the perpetrators and circumstances as ambiguous as possible before revealing paragraphs down that pro-regime mobs had indeed torched the building. And even still, the Western press has attempted to omit the presence of Right Sector, the militant wing of the current regime charged with carrying out political intimidation and violence against Kiev’s opponents.

Odessa, north of pro-Russian Crimea, and far west of where clashes are now taking place in eastern Ukraine, has also been a point of contention between Kiev and Ukrainians who refuse to recognize the unelected regime’s authority.

Right Sector, a Neo-Nazi militant group who spearheaded the so-called “Euromaidan” protests, has been visibly operating in Odessa in recent weeks. It’s primary role has been to attack and intimidate political opponents planning to run in upcoming elections. It was therefore already present an well established in Odessa ahead of the attack on the Trade Unions House resulting in dozens of deaths in a single day, and as part of a wider campaign to put down multiplying unrest erupting across the country.

Right Sector can be identified by its members openly wearing Nazi insignia, as well as carrying crimson and black banners. Mobs supporting the Svoboda party are also present among recent clashes, wearing yellow armbands with the Nazi wolfangel symbol upon them.

For NATO – War or Nothing?

The clashes in Odessa in the south and Slavyansk in the east, appear to some to be part of an escalating conflict meant to lure neighboring Russia into a direct conflict with the NATO-backed regime in Kiev. While this is possible, a repeat of the 2008 Georgia-South Ossetia War would most likely take place, with superior Russian forces quickly overwhelming Ukrainian troops and leaving Kiev vulnerable to inevitable regime change.

Immensely unpopular and wholly illegitimate, the regime in Kiev stands little chance in any upcoming election. It is also faced with the self-imposed economic ruination of Ukraine, after willfully accepting IMF conditions which include crippling austerity measures that will only further diminish the regime’s support and stability.

With a socioeconomically hobbled Ukraine still reeling from the loss of Crimea, the “Ukraine” the US and EU had invested in through their “Euromaidan” putsch, no longer exists. With anti-fascist, pro-Russian sentiment running high across what remains of Ukraine (and around the world), and an unpopular regime teetering precariously in Kiev, the West appears instead, intent on burning the country rather than leave it a stable and beneficial neighbor for Russia.

Ukraine is lost. At least lost as many of us had once imagined it—as a potential member of the European Union and, perhaps one day, of NATO.

This sentiment has been repeated across NATO’s corporate-funded think-tank, the Atlantic Council which recently hosted its “Europe Whole and Free” forum – where the expansion of both the European Union and NATO were the focus. The disruption of this expansion, and perhaps even the threat of its reversal appears to weigh foremost on the minds of Western policy makers.

Creating a disaster along Russia’s borders in Ukraine, while attempting to make progress elsewhere, and thus alleviating itself from the promises it made the regime in Kiev upon its accession to power to “rebuild” Ukraine’s troubled economy, appears to be the current agenda.

Responsibility to Protect?

The United States had used the “responsibility to protect” doctrine as cover for regime change in Libya, and attempted regime change in Syria. All the while it was fabricating atrocities to sway public opinion, it was in reality fueling sectarian extremists who were in reality carrying out the crimes against humanity the West was accusing Libya and Syria of perpetrating in fiction. This formula has been spun around in Ukraine.

Now the West is expending resources to cover up atrocities to prevent the “responsibility to protect” from being invoked against them. The massacre in Odessa would have been marked as a turning point by the West for military intervention had it not been their own proxies who carried it out. Instead, the US has claimed, according to the BBC, that ongoing violence carried out by the regime in Kiev is “proportionate and reasonable.”

With the West not only covering up the atrocities being carried out by the regime in Kiev, but in fact aiding and abetting them, the violence will only escalate further. Beyond Odessa, helicopter gunships, armored columns, and special forces have been sent by Kiev into eastern Ukraine and are attempting to overrun and occupy towns and cities that refuse to recognize the unelected regime. This includes the city of Slavyansk where deaths have been reported on both sides and military aircraft have been shot down.

Ukraine is being pushed to the edge of a much larger and destructive conflict that if started, may be difficult to stop. If the West commits to a proxy war and has been able to mobilize enough militants to carry it out, it can leave Ukraine a destabilized failed state Russia may spend years managing. Russia’s attempts to deescalate the conflict have been met only by belligerence from the West. Its patience, and the patience of pro-Russian factions in Ukraine may be the only factor that helps push Ukraine back from that edge.